Medical Humanities Minor Program

Medical Humanities: An Undergraduate Minorat Saint Louis University

Welcome to the home page of the Medical Humanities Undergraduate Minor program at Saint Louis University. Our program prepares students for careers in the Health Sciences by promoting awareness and understanding of culturally mutable conceptions of disease and care in order to build a foundation for ethical health service based on knowledge of, and respect for, differing interpretations of illness experience and suffering.

Medical Humanities emerged as a distinctive field in the 1970s when Joanne Trautmann Banks first compiled a database on "Medicine and Literature." There are now Medical Humanities programs in schools around the world, including a Ph.D. program at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. However, the skills and understanding promoted by Medical Humanities programs are more complex than can be satisfactorily addressed in the context of graduate study alone, so the learning required must begin at the undergraduate level in a systematic study of medical values.

Our program is open to any undergraduates interested in multicultural perspectives on health care and is especially appropriate for those planning a career in medicine, medical law, health care, or social service, and humanities majors interested in related fields, such as patient advocacy, or research in and applications of narrative medicine, historical and cultural studies of medicine, medical ethics, and art, music, or narrative therapies.

Please take a moment to peruse our program requirements. If the Medical Humanities Minor Program appeals to you, please contact program director Dr. Anne Stiles (astiles1@slu.edu) to further discuss the prospect of enrollment. If you would like to enroll, please run off a copy of the advising form, fill it out and submit it to Dr. Stiles, who will serve as your program advisor.

Thank you for your interest in this exciting program at Saint Louis University.